They only conducted 9 UPC inspections and 11 price posting inspections for CompUSA, whereas they did 147 and 228, respectively, for WalMart. So in terms of numbers, WalMart had more violations, but they made up a smaller percentage.

Yet despite having a smaller number they make up close to a quarter of a million dollars in fines.

I’m not sure how to interpret these results– the majority of Wal-mart’s failures weren’t in UPC numbers not ringing up right, but in not posting the the proper prices in the correct locations. This comes as no surprise to me whatsoever as if you’ve been to any Wal-mart, particularly the clothing departments, you have to doubly make sure that what you’re grabbing is actually from the right shelf. Is that wal-mart’s problem? Half the time it isn’t.

I was only surprised to see Trader Joe’s and CVS. I’ve never been inside of a Trader Joe’s (never heard of it before reading this site) but y’all only say good things about it. CVS is expensive enough without doing extra stuff with their prices.

something_amazing: Huh? WalMart did not have a smaller number of violations, just a smaller overall percentage. They’re a bigger store, so they had more violations and subsequently incurred more fines.

As far as the price posting issue, it doesn’t look entirely clear how they determine that. Not sure whether it’s based on prices not being clearly posted at all, or being posted in the wrong place.

I seriously doubt that the fines are being calculated subjectively. The report says that full data is available on their website. It probably outlines the criteria they use to levy fines.